


Aftermath

by a_lrightevans



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Experimental Style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 13:52:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7107589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_lrightevans/pseuds/a_lrightevans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And at the end of it all, after Voldemort is gone and the two lovers lay dead on the ground, after the bodies have been sent into the dirt and sparks have been sent into the sky, then, once its all over, only the living remain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

And at the end of it all, after Voldemort is gone and the two lovers lay dead on the ground, after the bodies have been sent into the dirt and sparks have been sent into the sky, then, once its all over, only the living remain. 

Amongst them, three boys. Men, really, but they still feel like boys. Two betrayed and one betrayer. All three of them are desperately alone. 

The first takes on his animal form, shrinks down, down, because everything feels smaller as a rat, the hunger, the tiredness. The guilt. He runs and he doesn’t stop running until he has found a family to take him in, to keep him warm and safe and fed. Life as a rat is better than Peter Pettigrew thinks he deserves and the worst part is, despite everything, he still thinks that if ever came down to it, he would probably do it all again. 

The second is dragged laughing and screaming into a cell. He doesn’t get a trial. He doesn’t get a final conversation. (Doesn’t know who he’d talk to anyway.) What he does get is this: Four walls, twelve years, and a thousand bad memories. He watches his brother walk away from him, hears his mother screaming for him to leave and not come back, sees the two bodies lying broken, one on each floor of the house. 

He writes letters to block it out. Not real letters, he has no parchment. He writes them in his head, so they’re more like prayers. Except they’re not prayers; because Sirius knows nobody can hear him.  _Dear Prongs, I wish you were here. Dear Peter, I wish you were dead. _ _Dear Moony, where are you?_ Dear Lily, I’m so sorry. __

He doesn’t know if they make him feel better or worse but he keeps writing them anyway, five hundred a day, every day, for twelve years, because how else is he supposed to fill up the time? 

The third sits in a tumble down cottage casting heating charms to keep warm and staring at his hands. He doesn’t cry when he sees the news, reads it out of the morning paper. He sits for a long time, knuckles white as he grips his spoon. Eventually he puts the paper down and picks up his cereal bowl. Washes it. Drys it. Puts it in the cupboard. Boils the kettle. Makes a cup of tea. Drops the cup of tea. Cleans up the tea and cuts his hands on the broken china. Doesn’t cry. Doesn’t cry. Holds his breath and closes his eyes and doesn’t cry. He isn’t angry. He isn’t even really sad. He just… _is_. Its like this until next day when he gets the letter from the Ministry, asking what they are to do with the bodies. _That’s_ the bit that gets him. When he realises he has a funeral to plan. When he realises that Sirius has murdered all of their friends and then left _him_ to deal with it alone. God. Thats _just like him_. Makes him think about the time he flooded the Slytherin common room and then let Remus take the detention for it. 

Except it _isn’t_ like him. Thats what _really_ gets him. He might’ve let Remus take the blame for flooding the Slytherins or thrown Pete’s homework in the bin so he wasn’t the only one in detention, but _this_? Remus can’t think about it. Can’t think about the fact Sirius and James had broken him out of that detention 10 minutes in, anyway. 

He doesn’t have the luxury of falling apart, never has, so he stands up. He palms the tears out of his eyes. He plans the funeral. He gets through the day. He gets through the day. He gets through the day. 

***

It will be twelve years before the three are united once more. Peter will be trembling and Remus will be pale and Sirius will be starving and everything will have changed. (But on those creaking floorboards that they’ve walked a thousand times, with a moonlit castle in the distance and a boy who is familiar from his messy hair to his ludicrous, unwavering nobility, for just a second, it will feel like nothing has changed at all.) 


End file.
